ACCORDING to information acquired from the Central Bank of Nigeria, Nigeria’s external reserves increased by $243.83 million in 19 days.
According to the CBN’s data on reserve movement, the value increased from $39.54 billion on April 1, 2022 to $39.78 billion on April 19, 2022.
External reserves declined by $313 million in March, from $39.86 billion at the start of the month to $39.55 billion on March 30.
The Governor, CBN, Godwin Emefiele, said at the last Monetary Policy Committee meeting that “The moderate accretion to reserves reflects the duality of Nigeria’s position as an oil exporter and importer of refined petroleum products.”
Prof. Mike Obadan, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, stated that the oil sector had provided over 90% of the country’s foreign exchange profits and external reserves accumulation for a long period.
He added that crude oil and gas export receipts had been a key addition to the government’s naira revenue.
Obadan said, “But for some time now, this has not been so due to two factors: a huge volume of crude oil theft which has prevented the country from meeting even the OPEC-approved production quota, and the inability of the NNPC, for many months, to make any remittance from direct oil export sales into the Federation Account and external reserves account.
“These are alarming developments which have adversely impacted government’s finances, external reserves accretion and exchange rate stability.
“The inhibiting factors are what the government can check in the short-term.”
He stated it was unthinkable that all of the foreign money earned from crude oil and gas exports was utilized to acquire refined petroleum products, or that the ‘under-recovery’ / petroleum subsidy absorbed all of the foreign exchange earned from oil sales.
The professor said, “I will therefore strongly appeal to the government to appreciate the grave implications of the oil sector and NNPC’s underperformance and effectively deal with the oil thefts and non-remittance of foreign exchange/naira revenue.
“If, in the presence of the array of security forces in the oil-producing areas, monumental oil theft is taking place to the detriment of the economy, then drastic measures are called for.
“Government should check the untoward developments, through effective security and monitoring, and the positive impact on government finances, external reserves and exchange rate stability will be visible in a short period.”
